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My name is Michael Morris, I am a photographer who came to photography later in life.  I started with digital and found it unrewarding so after a short time with MF, I moved to LF 4X5.  Almost everything I do now is large format B&W.  I am working to improve my technical and artistic skills constantly.  Living in Phoenix, I have access to some very good photographers who are willing to help and teach.  I am on a journey exploring photography, the US, and myself to some extent.  Along with my wife Mary, we are traveling the US together, cameras follow us everywhere and as we travel, this BLOG is updated.  It is very much a journal of my journey with ramblings about everything from the photograph I took while traveling, to the ah-ha moments when something new is grasped.

The old masters work is enthralling to me and I spend a lot of time looking at their work as well as most other work I have access to.  

 

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Entries in flower (5)

Thursday
Mar112010

One Last Floral

DateThursday, March 11, 2010 at 6:22AM

We are leaving on another trip tomorrow.  We will be gone about a week and will be heading to NW New Mexico and NE Arizona.  Bisti Badlands, Chaco Canyon, Aztec NM, Shiprock, and Canyon de Chelly.  Due to the economy this may the be last trip we take for quite some time.

During one of the sets with the new flowers I used the 8X10 and developed the film to have more contrast than usual.  This was to experiment more with alternative processes.  I have been working with Cyanotype, VanDyke, and Kallitype.  The print shown above is a Kallitype print.  It is a close relative to Platinum and Palladium but is much less expensive.  When I was doing the alt process work before I was never quite satisfied with the results using the digital negatives.  Many people today use digital negatives and some who are well experienced with alternative process have switched from analog to digital negatives.  As with other forms of photography, I prefer the look and feel of analog.  Digital will definitely improve but it will always be a different medium than film.  Some people will prefer film as long as it is available.

In any case, producing good analog negatives for alternative processes is a bit of a challenge.  One of the negative I was working with required a 6+ hour exposure using Cyanotype while another one required a 1 hour exposure.  KAllitype is faster, the print above was using a 6 minute exposure.  I hope to do quite a bit more alternative process prints in the coming months.

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Wednesday
Mar102010

Florals Continued

DateWednesday, March 10, 2010 at 6:47AM

 There was no way I could stop with this plant with the 8X10.  The 8X10 still feels huge and cumbersome and that tends to inhibit the creativity.  When you have equipment that is not totally comfortable the context is changed to one of working with the equipment rather than working with the image.  The 4X5 was that way in the beginning but now it actually feels like a compact camera and is very versatile and easy to use.  So I spent a couple of hours shooting the flowers with it and am very pleased with the results.  

All of the series is quite pleasing but these are my favorites.  They are busy but not cluttered and appear to have good cohesion.  I used the Adox CHS 50 film and I am thrilled with the results.  I am getting along quite well with the film so far and am looking forward to shooting it in the field and comparing prints with the TMax.

For each of these shots 2 lights were used.  One to the left was a large soft-box, the one to the right was a bare reflector.  I seem to be using that type of configuration frequently now.  Partly for convenience and partly because I like the results.  Use the soft-box to provide overall illumination and soften the shadows and the reflector for providing highlights.  Frequently though I will add barn doors or a snoot on to the reflector to provide more control.  Bit for these, just a bare reflector.

One thing I always keep in mind when working with artificial lighting is the closer the light is to the subject the softer the light.  If you want to create strong shadows, move the light back, for softer shadows, move the light closer.  When I first started using artificial light this seemed to be backwards but that is the way it works and can be used for creative effect.

AuthorArizona Treks | Comment1 Comment |
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Tuesday
Mar092010

More Florals

DateTuesday, March 9, 2010 at 6:28AM

These days it seems my imagination is captured by flowers, it could be the season, it could be that it is less practical to go anywhere, it cold be simply that I love florals and and am going through a phase that florals dominate my vision.  For whatever reason, I seem to have a lot of florals recently.  

On Sunday as Mary and I were doing our weekly grocery shopping I walked past a potted plant in the grocery and it grabbed my attention.  I got lost in the simplistic beauty of this plant and stood looking at it for a while, as Mary started the shopping.  Many different possibilities were evident and the images were flying about in my head.  When I finally caught up with Mary I told her I was going to buy the plant.  As we were finishing I went back and it was still speaking to me so it was adopted.

Last night I set up the lights and 8X10 and began shooting.  This also served to help me get more familiar with the Adox film.  Out of the 4 negatives, this one is my favorite but all are quite nice.  I am seriously considering shooting some 4X5 this morning. 

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Thursday
Dec032009

When Will I Ever Learn?

DateThursday, December 3, 2009 at 9:07PM

The wonders of creativity will never cease to amaze me.  This image has been bouncing around in my head for a few weeks now.  It took some time to figure out some of the details, but this is essentially what I have been seeing.  I took some time today to work in the studio.  This one had to be born but I thought, "just 1 set and them move on to the textures project".  After the first set, roses started dancing around in my head as part of the setup.  So off I go to our friendly neighborhood florist to buy some flowers.  She usually has some older flowers she will sell me for a reduced price or sometimes even at no cost.  So I picked up a dozen small roses and 3 others.  Back home and several new photos were made using one of the roses.  

The bottom line is, the idea began to grow and take on a life of it's own, as these things are want to do.  So rather than a quicks set, it was an all day affair.  But there is some good work that came of it.

The how was the interesting part.  The image above was made using 2 lights, basically on opposite sides.  Onr was a reflector with a diffuser on it, the other was a soft-box.  The soft-box was used to soften the shadows and it was balanced so no secondary shadows were shown.  I used the 120mm macro lens.  But was unable to get the desired depth of field (DOF) when framing it like I wanted.  I moved the camera back until the desired DOF was found at f/22 and shot it there then cropped to get the desired composition.

The photo below was shot with 3 lights.  The first 2 were like in the photo above, but I added a small (100WS) slave strobe with a snoot on it to illuminate the blooms on the roses.  It also was shot at f/22.  The light setup actually would only provide enough light for f/22.

On some of the shots I stopped down a bit more and had to remove the diffuser from the light with the reflector before I could get enough light.

 Considering finals are in < 2 weeks, these will probably be a part of the finals.

In looking at the necessary crops, the new enlarger will not do them without modifications.  So now, do I modify it or use the old enlarger.  Tough choice.

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Sunday
Aug162009

Flowers

DateSunday, August 16, 2009 at 2:38PM

For a couple of weeks I have been wanting to do some shooting.  Doing an outing is not practical and may not be possible so I decided to set up a small product area in the upstairs camera storage room.  While looking on-line for more work I found some by a photographer that shot a lot of flowers.  I was particularly inspired by his calla lilies. So calla lily pictures started buzzing around in my head and I simply had to try some.  Normally when I shoot flowers I use a black background.  This time I wanted to have white flowers with a black background and also try some back-lit shots to see how it worked and that also is a bit of an exercise in controlling the lighting.  Balancing the white flower tones against the white background to have good separation.   

After getting the area set up, several negatives were mad, none printed yet.  There are several in the series that I like a lot.  The 2 in this post are a couple of my favorites.

It is interesting that about every time I do any product type work, I buy some flowers to shoot as well.

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